


Behold, Your Born King

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Missing Scene, Sparring, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 15:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13102929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: Bill had been little more than an arrow nocked and aimed at Vortigern since Uther's death.  Until Arthur.





	Behold, Your Born King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sealgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealgirl/gifts).



> Written as a treat in Yuletide 2017.

Steel rang against steel as Bill deflected his sparring partner's blade, relying on his greater experience and better state of health to turn Arthur's lunge aside. But for all his still-healing injuries and rough-edged form, Bill's opponent was still as alarmingly quick as the first time they'd tested one another with edged weapons, incorporating the deflection into the opening move of his next strike. Percival's sword fairly danced in his grip, a cruder blade than Excalibur but more than sufficient for the task at hand.

Bill parried again, and again, watching and waiting for another opening, a trickle of sweat running down his temple as he gave ground in the open space of the cavern. Whoever had mentored the long-lost prince in the art of close combat hadn't been of his or Bedivere's background, that much was clear; but for all that, he'd tailored his approach to Arthur's strengths, teaching him to use not only his muscle but also his mind in the fight. Even without magical assistance, he was deadly. Fortunately, Bill yet had age and cunning on his side.

He sensed a wall at his back, and turned his next retreating step into an attack of his own, catching Arthur's sword out of position and stepping inside his guard. In an actual fight, he wouldn't have stopped short of drawing blood; but the purpose of their practice bout had been to keep Arthur in form as he healed, not to injure him further. Bill grinned with satisfaction at the hard-fought win, and nodded to him over his blade.

Arthur blew a frustrated breath, then lowered his own sword with a self-deprecating snort. "I'll have to remember that sequence of moves; I've not often fought against men with a knight's training."

Hot-tempered, but well aware of his own strengths and weaknesses; a deadly warrior with natural strength of command who didn't _want_ the position of power he'd been born to. Handsome, too — and so obviously his father's son that Bill had been more than a little disoriented to discover his identity after meeting him in that brothel in Londinium. At the time, it had angered him to think that the heir he and Bedivere had spent the last two and a half decades waiting for wasn't fit to shovel the dung in Uther's stables; closer acquaintance had taught him otherwise, but had brought with it another, equally exasperating set of questions.

"Who _did_ you learn to fight from, if I might ask?" Bill wondered aloud, sliding his blade back into its sheath. "You're very good; even unusually good I would say, for someone of your ... upbringing."

"For a supposed bastard raised in a brothel, you mean," Arthur replied with a shrug, clearly amused at Bill's prevarication. "Do you know, when Vortigern came down to the dungeons and called me Uther's son, for a moment I actually thought he meant the old king had been a customer of ours? It seemed more likely than me actually being the 'born king' everyone talked about."

Bill might once have wondered the same thing, if not for the fact that Arthur had exactly the right name, age, and colouring to be the little boy he'd last seen in the arms of Queen Igraine; after all, the sword had been magically bound to a bloodline, not contracted to its legally acceptable scions. But prophecy had a way of making sure its conditions applied, particularly when its other subject spent so much time and effort trying to avert it. The legend required a legitimate prince; and through foul means as well as fair, the fates had provided.

"Unlikelier things have happened, some of them _in_ that very brothel," he reminded him with a wry smile.

Arthur shrugged, unapologetic. "An orphan on those streets — I was fighting from the moment I was big enough to run errands that took me out of doors. Fortunately for me, a lot of those errands took me to the old bathhouse down the docks, and the man who ran it was willing to teach anyone how to defend themselves if they were willing to learn. Staves, swords, wrestling ... and also how to pick my battles. How much extra did Jack's Eye's men make you pay to give you the chance to slip away from them?"

"Extra...? Ah," Bill realised, as certain details about his escape that day were better illuminated. Maggie would probably have tried to free him if he'd made it as far as Camelot's dungeons, but it would have risked her position to do so; a swift exchange of coin, however steep, had seemed very much the safer option. "I'd wondered why you repeated that remark about safe hands; it seemed ... disingenuous, given the situation."

"One thing about you idealistic types; you overlook all the folk out there just doing their best to survive, who would as soon serve a better master but can't afford the luxury of running away," Arthur scoffed, stripping off his sweaty shirt to exchange for a dry one. Sharply defined muscles and a hard lifetime's worth of scars caught the torchlight as he slipped his arms through rough-woven sleeves, lending extra weight to his definition of survival. "A little extra consideration for people arrested under my roof benefited everyone in the long run: economic encouragement for the less vicious Blacklegs, a better reputation for my establishment, and fewer people unnecessarily dangling from the king's nooses."

Bill shook his head, marvelling again at the wefts of coincidence that had brought him face-to-face with the man he'd been searching for, all unwitting, on the very day he'd hit a branding barge rumour had hinted carried a serious contender: the adopted younger son of another one of the knights from Uther's old council. Nearly delirious with blood loss, he'd stared into the face of a too-perceptive brothel keeper too friendly with the king's men and tried to kill him for it; it was the gods' own luck that neither of them had taken lasting hurt that day.

"It cost me quite a bit extra, as it happens; it seems they weren't very impressed that I'd drawn a dagger on their benefactor."

"Heh." Arthur chuckled, moving to one of the rough-built tables along the cavern walls to pour two cups of water from a waiting pitcher. He moved with as much grace in that mundane task as in the fight, more evidence of a man used to doing for himself even in the most basic of duties. "I'll have to remember that as well, if I end up facing any of those lads again. Back Lack says Jack's Eye turned over my coffers and told Mischief John where to set his fires, but wood and coin can be replaced; people can't, and a lot of mine made it out of there who otherwise wouldn't. Out of the castle after you lot rescued me, as well. The girls really shouldn't have escaped without being noticed, and it definitely wasn't any of _your_ rabble that helped them."

Bill took a cup from Arthur's hand, biting his tongue on a sharp retort. The subject was clearly important to Arthur... and if he took the time to look at it objectively, might even be of benefit in the long run. Vortigern had sown fear and strife deep into the hearts of the populace, the better to keep them from uniting against him; practical tolerance would probably go a lot further than simply slaughtering every man who'd ever taken the king's coin in the last twenty-five years. Where there is poison, the Mage liked to say, there is a remedy. 

The question was, could they really trust that Arthur _was_ that remedy, and not a very pretty lure in a Vortigern-baited trap?

But on the other hand, could they really afford to doubt that he _wasn't_? With every day that passed, the memory of Uther's achievements faded a little further, and Vortigern's hand pressed down that much heavier on the people. Arthur had magic and legend behind him, a good deal of pragmatic common sense, and the full measure of the Pendragon charisma, but Uther had been no less blessed and still fell to Vortigern's treachery. Once the new mage tower was complete, even Excalibur might not be enough to tip the balance.

"I won't apologise for that, as we could hardly have been expected to do anything else with the limited knowledge and resources at hand," Bill finally replied as he took a sip. "It was save you, or doom everyone, and as you're here to make the argument in the first place...."

Arthur tipped his cup in wry acknowledgement. "Still."

"Still. It isn't idealism for most of us, you know; it's bitter, painful experience," he continued. Arthur might be able to differentiate between the faces behind those masks, but Bill had stewed in his hatred too long, and he was not alone in that feeling; Arthur needed to know he couldn't expect them all to just forget the atrocities the likes of Mercia and Clarendon had perpetrated in Vortigern's name. "You're right; it _is_ easier to leave it all behind when everything you value was stripped away from you beforehand. So perhaps it's for the best that you have supporters even among the king's enforcers, because you're going to have enough challenges in the early days of your rule without worrying how to disarm ten thousand soldiers stationed among your subjects. I'm afraid we won't be much help in that endeavour."

Something about that seemed to catch Arthur off guard, and it wasn't the reminder that he, too, was human. He coughed on a mouthful of water, and arched his eyebrows at Bill as he wiped his mouth dry. "My _subjects_?"

Bill frowned; he'd thought they were past that reflexive denial. "Surely you didn't still think you were going back to your former life after we take down Vortigern? You and the Princess Catia are the only legitimate heirs, and the barons will never follow your cousin after the way she's been kept out of the public eye and denied all marriage offers. Britain would dissolve back into a dozen separate territories within a handful of years, and we'd be easy meat for any sea-going barbarian or painted northern chieftain who decided to take advantage."

His disgruntlement only seemed to amuse Arthur further, though; he shook his head, a slow, genuine smile growing on his face that actually reminded Bill more of his mother than it did the ever-serious Uther. "No; though it's a bit flattering you thought that argument would convince me if I did. What I meant was, what happened to 'even we don't like you'? I've been little more than a means to an end for you and Bedivere since you brought me here; he's a bit politer than you about it, but I see it in him, too. I think this is the first I've heard either of you even hint about what'll come after, rather than just what needs to be done next."

The observation caught Bill off guard, and he started in surprise. Not because it was true; he was well aware that he'd been little more than an arrow nocked and aimed at Vortigern since Uther's death and the thorough winnowing of his advisors. But because somewhere along the way, he apparently _had_ started to believe that there would be an after.

The more fool him, with such challenges yet before them. Bill swiftly shut that realisation away and turned his reaction into a mocking bow. "My apologies, Your Majesty; we've had rather a lot of other things on our minds. I'll be sure to observe the proper courtesies henceforth."

Arthur waved that off, laughing, and turned briefly away as Kay came up to ask him something; the strange tension of the moment passed by the time they resumed their conversation about fighting methods, and Bill let it slip away without further comment.

It stayed on his mind, though, through everything that came after: through cutting down one of the chief pillars of Vortigern's reign, through riot and betrayal and Arthur's eyes burning with Excalibur's flame, all the way down to the moment when the new king knelt at his feet and pressed the legendary Sword into his hands. Of the day he'd discovered he _was_ still capable of hope, after all.

 _You wanted a prophecy_ , Mercia had taunted the crowd at Arthur's intended execution; but he'd spoken truer than he knew. _This is your prophecy_.

"Arise, my king," William said, lifting Excalibur from Arthur's shoulder, and found that he meant every word.


End file.
